Harry helped launch the Paralympic-style sporting competition yesterday when he joined Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin and blind US Navy lieutenant Brad Snyder in igniting a large symbolic flame during the games' opening ceremony.

The Warrior Games will see injured servicemen and women from the US, UK, Canada and Australia compete in Paralympic-style events in Colorado Springs and the Prince said he hoped to bring the event to Britain.

Harry said he believed the spectacle of battle-scared troops competing against each other would attract spectators by the tens of thousands.

In a speech given ahead of the opening ceremony yesterday the royal, who was an official ambassador for Britain's athletes at last summer's Olympics and Paralympics, said: "I only hope in the future, the near future, we can bring the Warrior Games to Britain and continue to enlarge this fantastic cause.

"I don't see how it wouldn't be possible to fill a stadium with 80,000 people, not to watch Olympics, not to watch Paralympics but to watch wounded servicemen fight it out amongst each other - not on a battlefield but in a stadium."

Later today Harry will start one of the Warrior Games cycling events at the US Air Force Training Academy in Colorado Springs and present medals to the top performing participants.